Putting the ‘Student’ Back into Student-Athlete
In an effort to improve retention and graduation rates, the NCAA rolls out new rules and regulations
By Kendra Hamilton
College sports is a numbers game, full of so many calculations — batting averages, free-throw percentages, BCS and RPI scores — that keeping them all straight can be a full-time job for a sports program. Now, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has put a new number on the table, and it has captured the attention of every athletic director, coach and student-athlete in Division I.
The number is 925 — and it represents the magic number in the NCAA’s multiyear effort at putting the “student” back into “student-athlete.” Under the new system the NCAA began rolling out on Feb. 28, schools that have an “academic progress rate,” or APR, of 925 or above have demonstrated a graduation rate of at least 50 percent and are safe from NCAA penalties.
Schools that don’t make the grade will earn a whack with the NCAA’s stick: They’ll face “contemporaneous penalties,” i.e., they’ll start losing athletic scholarships, explains Diane Dickman, managing director of membership services for the NCAA.
And that’s not all. If the APR drops below 925 for a period of years without improving, the school will face even stiffer “historical penalties”: Limits on post-season play, perhaps even restricted NCAA membership. The exact details of those sanctions have not yet been ironed out, Dickman adds.
But all in all, says NCAA President Myles Brand, the new system represents the most “far-reaching academic reform in decades.”
Dr. Lee McElroy, director of athletics at the University at Albany and a member of the NCAA’s Division I Management Council, agrees.
